ST. LOUIS — They call it March Madness, but it’s really about relevance, especially for schools like Middle Tennessee that have been playing good basketball for a number of years without anybody really paying attention.

That’s because most of the college season is spent focusing on the biggest basketball factories such as Michigan State, Kentucky, Kansas and the like. There’s squabbling over which team deserves a higher ranking or has more All-Americans. Then we get to the NCAA Tournament and find out there’s not really a whole lot that separates the basketball factories and the basketball lifers.

The spotlight is now shining brightly on Murfreesboro, Tenn., while East Lansing, Mich., is in shock a Michigan State team many felt would win a national championship is gone after the first game.

“I put myself out there that this team had a chance to win a national championship,” a teary-eyed Izzo said. “We just got beat. I want everybody to know this team had a chance to win a national championship. I don’t feel one bit different.”

Izzo summed it up by saying, “One bad day and you’re gone.” But the Spartans didn’t really have a bad day. They had a bad start, trailing 15-2 early, but seven times in the second half they got within three points of the Blue Raiders, who simply answered every challenge. The underdogs brought their A-plus game, making 55.9 percent from the field (33 of 59) and 57.9 percent (11 of 19) from 3-point range.

“I’m not sure anybody in my career has shot those kinds of numbers,” Izzo said.

It wasn’t all about hot shooting. Davis used multiple defenses to keep Michigan State off-balance.

“It was probably the only team all year that went from 1-3-1 [zone] to 2-3 [zone] to man,” said Spartans senior guard Denzel Valentine, who combined with fellow senior guard Bryn Forbes to shoot just 9-of-25 from the field.

“Our identity is about changing defenses,” Davis said. “We really thought after watching film, they run so much good offensive action against man-to-man that we were going to do a lot of switching and it got them a little bit out of rhythm.”

The name on the front of the jersey really doesn’t mean much this time of year. The beauty of the NCAA Tournament is it’s 5-on-5 and you can’t measure the heart inside the jersey or the creativity of a coach who had his players believing they could win long before anyone else did.

“We weren’t scared of the moment,” senior Perrin Buford said. “Coach has been preaching it all week, just do what got us here. And that’s what we did.”

Davis, who grew up the son of coach, has a 28-year-old daughter named Ally with Down Syndrome to keep him grounded. Moments before the game, he watched her walk down the aisle toward her seat with a pizza in hand, knowing food took precedent over the game.

The Blue Raiders will face Syracuse on Sunday, the 10th-seeded Orange, also an upset winner of sorts over seventh-seed Dayton. Good luck picking that one. The Blue Raiders have proven they’re relevant.